The Waiting Game
by mer solitare
Summary: Elizabeth waits for a day when she will no longer be afraid. [JE NE character death]


Elizabeth cannot remember a day when she was not afraid.

Nearby Jack whistles softly under his breath, beads in his hair clicking as his head sways. In her mind it is the death rattle, the click of bones in the charnel house, and she shivers.

"I was a fool." She says, voice brittle with disuse.

Jack cocks his head at her, ever sparrow-like, and gives her a grin. "That's what piracy is, Lizzie dear. A profession for men too foolish to understand the meaning o' it."

Elizabeth can feel the specter of death behind her; the shadow of the gallows is ever present in her mind. This is not freedom, this is not what she wanted, this is not what she dreamed of as an ignorant child. She laughs bitterly, wanting to hate Jack and hating herself for not being able to do so. "And you Jack Sparrow- king of fools, are you?"

Jack traces his fingers across the bar of his cell reverently, half mad and utterly sane. "Aye." he says calmly, "For I knew what the end would be, and I did nothing to stop it."

--

Anamaria, Elizabeth learns, died at her own hand; a guard found her hanging in her cell, rictus grin of triumph upon her lips. They said he'd been sick afterwards-- just a lad of fifteen-- and Elizabeth laughed at that until she could do nothing more than shudder.

"It always comes down to the end." Jack tells her later, eyes wild in the glow of the guards' lanterns.

"I know." Elizabeth replies and watches as a guard strides past, red coat bright as blood . "I know." She repeats, and refuses to speak the rest of the night.

--

"I hate you." She moans at Jack, shuddering as she wipes her mouth with a dirty sleeve.

"I gave you a reprieve." He replies, serious and calm as the sea before a storm.

"No." She replies. "You gave me a longer sentence."

Jack shrugs. "It's all the same, love. You'll learn that."

--

The midwife nods once and wipes her hand on her skirt, slipping past Norrington and into the corridor. Elizabeth gathers her skirt around her, covering her legs. In the cell beside her Jack laughs, clutches at the bars that separate them with white knuckles.

Norrington jerks away when Elizabeth pulls herself up to reach for him, and simply says, "You will be safe until September, then."

He turns and Elizabeth stumbles forward, reaching for him, not caring that Jack is watching quietly. "I'm sorry." She whispers, because she knows not what else to say.

Norrington turns and locks the door of her cell. "Elizabeth, you never were one for lies."

--

She's forgotten the days of the week, the time of day. She measures the passage of time by the bodies swinging from the gallows. Gibbs hangs for a month before they cut him down; Marty, a scant week.

They all swing before Elizabeth's eyes, and she watches with dread, unable to look away. She cries the day she looks out the window and sees only the noose.

"It'll be you next." She tells Jack.

Jack leans forward to press himself against the iron of his cell, nearly touching Elizabeth. He presses his fingers to hers, hungrily, the way a drowning man cast into the sea would grasp driftwood.

"I know." He says, softly, and Elizabeth wishes she could hold him when his shudders turn to quiet sobs.

--

The warmth of another body beside her wakes her, and she rolls over to see Jack beside her, eyes glittering in the dark.

"Your Norrington was always a good man."

Elizabeth smiles at that and leans into him, imagining she can still smell the sea on his skin. "So were you." She says finally, and presses her mouth to his.

--

"Up, Sparrow." A voice says roughly, and Elizabeth jerks awake as soldiers yank Jack up. In the corridor Norrington watches silently, eyes hidden in the shadow of a nearby shelf. She stumbles to her feet and pushes against the nearest soldier, hands scrambling at his wrists.

"Not yet, not yet not yet don'tpleaselethimgo!" She mumbles, words tumbling over one another as she scratches at the guard, wild, eyes blank with fear. The other guard grabs her around the waist and yanks her away, hands rough against her, and she screams, the cry echoing in the room.

"Let her go." Norrington commands, and moves forward. His men comply instantly and Elizabeth reaches for Jack, hands shaking.

Jack grins at her, the smile not reaching his eyes, and says, "It'll be alight. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow." He presses his mouth against her forehead, her cheeks, her closed eyelids reverently, and she snorts, hysterical laughter bubbling up in her throat.

Yes, she thinks, and in the end even that will not save you.

--

Outside, the drums roll.

In her cell Elizabeth presses her hands to her eyes and pushes until fireworks burst behind her eyelids.

--

For weeks she imagines the smell of death is the scent of an ocean wind. At night she curls in on herself and stares at the wall until exhaustion overcomes her. Norrington visits sometimes, his eyes luminous in pale skin, and watches as she stares out the window.

She dreams of her child and her past, of her father and mother telling her stories of sea monsters as a child. She imagines what the noose will feel like around her neck, if she will simply die of an infection after the child is born. She sings lullabies to her child, spindly fingers dancing across her belly. Sometimes she can almost feel the sea spray against her face, feel the deck of the _Pearl _beneath her feet.

She always wakes to see the shadow of the gallows outside.

--

Elizabeth waits for a day when she will no longer be afraid.


End file.
